Zhang Ziyi studied at the Beijing College of Dance from age 11 and then at the Central Academy of Drama.

Her film appearances include Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, House of Flying Daggers, 2046, and Memoirs of a Geisha.

Memoirs of a Geisha was her first starring role in Hollywood although she did have a part in Rush Hour 2.

Life for an actor in China is not the same as in Hollywood. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Zhang Ziyi said:

"In China, we work seven days, we don't have Christmas, we don't have weekends. For House of Flying Daggers, I worked for five months. I trained two months. And I lived with a real blind girl, studying her, to get a lot of the details."

For the fantastic 'Echo Game' scene from House of Flying Daggers, Zhang Ziyi took two months to learn the moves and the shoot took 20 days.

According to Zhang Ziyi: "We would shoot one movement at a time and sometimes he [director Zhang Yimou] would make me repeat it 10 or 20 times."

Many of the films Zhang Ziyi has appeared in, for example, House of Flying Daggers, Hero and The Road Home, were directed by Zhang Yimou, who first spotted her at 17 when he was casting a shampoo commercial.

In May 2005, Zhang Ziyi came fifteenth in Harpers & Queen's list of the 100 most beautiful women.

In February 2015, it was revealed that Zhang Ziyi was to marry the musician Wang Feng after he sent her a white drone containing a diamond ring to propose to her at her 36th birthday party.